"A Committee of Correspondence"

15 July 2016

HARPER: RELEASE OF 28 PAGES BEGS DE NOVO INVESTIGATION

After a nearly 14 year delay, the House and Senate Intelligence Committees have released a White House-redacted copy of the 28 page chapter from the original Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11. The 28 page chapter was blocked from publication by then-President George W. Bush, under strong pressure from both Saudi Arabia and the FBI. It took a decade-long battle, led by former Senator Bob Graham and current Members of Congress Walter Jones (R-NC), Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) and Thomas Massie (R-Kty.), and a persistent public lobbying fight by 9/11 survivors and family members to box President Obama in. On July 6, Reps. Jones, Lynch and Massie held a Capitol Hill press conference, in which they made clear that if President Obama continued to stonewall on releasing the 28 pages, they would lead Congressional action to declassify the chapter, bypassing the Executive Branch altogether. Ultimately, they threatened to pull a "Pentagon Papers," a reference to Sen. Mike Gravel's courageous decision to put the full text of the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record. The Supreme Court subsequently ruled that Gravel's actions were legal under the public interest disclosure clause of the US Constitution.

It is important to carefully read the 28 pages, which were released July 15, with some redactions. The next step should be clear: A new investigation must be launched, with adequate funding, staffing, and with no artificial deadline. A careful reading of the 28 pages should make clear that there were opportunities to crack down on the Saudi backing of Sunni jihadist terrorism 14 years ago--long before terms like "Islamic State," "Nusra Front," "Boko Haram" became household words, associated with bloody terrorist atrocities. The Sept. 11, 2001 attacks are the first subject to be thoroughly revisited, but the full scope of the Saudi role in nurturing a global terrorist infrastructure must be explored, carrying right up to the present moment.

Rep. Massie, upon reading the 28 pages, told a Capitol Hill press conference more than a year ago that it changed his view of the history of the past 15 years. He was right. The coming weeks' distractions, with both parties holding their nominating conventions and then the serious launching of the presidential election campaign, cannot be a distraction from a serious response to the evidence now available, for the first time, to the American people and to the world at large.

Yes, "The coming weeks' distractions, with both parties holding their nominating conventions and then the serious launching of the presidential election campaign, cannot be a distraction." But, along with mass murder in Nice and Dallas, the Trump VP announcement, and summer vacations, there are gobs of distractions. Not to mention the obvious implications of making a release on a Friday afternoon.

The committees had to know this. Question is, did the committees intentionally try to bury this story? If not, are they really this clueless about the implications of the timing of the release?

IMO they released the report with the intention of burying it in plain sight to cause the least damage possible to the Saudis.

Only half. Incomplete until the DANCING ISRAELIS's unredacted FBI report is explained to the American public, as well as what they were doing; why they were there; and who gave the order to quietly deport them, hush it up, and classify the incident for 30 years.

It appears at the least that Israel knew that 9/11 was going down ahead of time, but did not notify the United States. This needs to be explained.

yes, but the degenerate Saudis should be placed in the context of wider support for 'jihadis' as a bulwark against soviet/Russian influence in the region. back in the day, there were reports of soviet intentions to invade the ME because Russia was running out of oil, and other equally silly sh*t dreamt up by the plan B'ers.

Well he's good bloviator so maybe someone will Trump he should, pardon the pun, trumpet this story at the convention and make the Establishment of both parties explain their silence over the past 14 years. It's not like he's going to get many Saudi (American) votes anyway.

That's a topic I would be interested in, marc. Religion as 'bulwark against' communist/socialist influence/Pan-Arabism, that is. I surely never stumbled across a more focused study of the topic, rumors only, it feels.

But would this be purely Saudi interest, or was there something like an agreements on the issue between the Saudis and their Western Cold War allies?

I always found the art student's activities interesting. But Rense, or in this case Dick Eastman, are once again a bit fast in their dot connections.

"The art students released a book about their art event out of Austria and the book is extremely hard to come by. IN fact, it is limited release and most copies are sold, I had to search very hard to find a copy but I found one. Here is a link to one of the stores that used to sell it:

This is utter nonsense of course. I know the Gelatine art collective. Anyway it is not in the least related to the mysterious Israeli art students. The event took place in March 2000, if I recall correctly. I also know Walter König. And I can assure you it is always pretty difficult to lay your hands on this type of publications. They are not available outside the specialized art book shop circles, since printed in very limited editions.